


Bringing James Home

by AliasFics374



Series: Remembering Home [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Flashbacks, Nat Steve and Sam dynamic, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha loves James, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, bringing james home, lots of Red Room references, minor mentions of abuse/torture/what did you think the Red Room would be like?, part 2 of this series (please read first one before this)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27586598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliasFics374/pseuds/AliasFics374
Summary: After Natasha learns about Steve's relation to James, and after Steve learns that there may or may not be something between his two best friends, Steve, Nat and Sam go searching for Bucky (or in Natasha's view, James). They spend months searching for the man that means the most to two out of the three people searching for the lost solider. Will they find him or just hit another dead end? And if they do, does James even remember anything?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov
Series: Remembering Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009140
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

SHIELD had fallen. The weight of that sentence still hadn’t processed fully in Natasha’s brain. SHIELD had fallen.

But she knew this feeling. A rush of freedom, and the idea of being a free agent that came with it. Yet this time around it was different. Mostly due to the fact that her files were public on the internet, and trending. 

People knew what she had done. Not to the fullest extent, yet they got the visual if they did their research. Natasha hated that. She hated how people would make assumptions about her based off of mission reports and highly classified files that go as far back as the Red Room. People were judging her based off of her past, and that… that affected her. She really didn’t want people to know about her life before “Natasha”.

Steve was standing in the cemetery, with Nick and Sam nearby. He looked up at her and stepped forward, seeming eager. She hadn’t been able to explain how she knew “Bucky” earlier, since Nick had rounded them up to brief them on his plan of taking down the helicarriers. Now she saw him look at her expectantly, and she was dreading it.

“How’d the court case go?” he asked first. But it seemed like he was just on the brink of jumping straight into the other topic.

“I’m not arrested yet, so,” she shrugged her shoulders.

“I want to look for him,” Steve blurted.

“I know,” she sighed and handed him a folder.

“I want you to come with us,” he added, almost shyly. 

“I’m a target right now, Steve. The worst thing I could do to you or…” should she call him James or Bucky? She decided on Bucky for Steve’s sake, “Bucky would be within your close proximity.”  
“I won’t mind Nat.”

She chuckled at this statement. Oh, Rogers, little did he know.

“I have a lot of enemies. I don’t want to bring the heat onto you as well. As for Barnes,” she decided to just stick with that, “he can’t have any government officials on his trail nor HYDRA operatives. If you wait until I get things sorted out then…”  
“Wait?! No, you know I won’t do that. Not when we have a lead on him,” Steve argued.

“This is not a lead, more of a breadcrumb,” she replied. “And this…”  
Natasha pointed at the file in his hand.

“…is basic information. Nothing I haven’t read nor checked already. Believe me, Rogers, I’ve searched for him before…”  
“And you’ll just give up?” he accused, his voice rising. It caused Sam to look over at the two with a questioning glance. Natasha glared at him, and he returned to his conversation with Fury.

“Don’t say I’ve given up, Steve, because I haven’t. Just give me a week to find a new cover and we can start. Please,” her tone dropped to full out serious. Not a hint of humor in her features. She hadn’t given up on James, she never would, she just…. ugh, it was so hard to make Steve understand, for him to even sympathize any of this.

She found that couldn’t mention the Red Room without his concerned pity expression appearing on his face. She didn’t need his stupid pity. And now here he was accusing her of giving up on the one person she loved the most? It stung.

“Nat, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Don’t ‘Nat’ me, Rogers,” she snapped, but then her tone became quieter, yet still had that “no-nonsense” edge as she walked away. “I’ll come to your apartment in a week. If you wait, I’ll help.”

Steve watched her walk away, then looked down at the file in his hand. He didn’t want to wait, yet he knew that he couldn’t do any of this without her. So, he did.

o0o

(one week later)

Natasha took a deep breath as she stood in front of Steve’s apartment door. There wasn’t any motion as she could tell inside, yet she was arriving at around 6:30 in the morning, so that could be a possible reason.

Over the course of the week, she hadn’t heard from Steve. Either meaning he waited for her or that he had left. So you could see Natasha’s dilemma.

During that period of radio silence, she had found ways to rescuer her files, though once something’s loose on the internet, it’s hard to reign it back in. She had also tried searching for a new cover, yet that sort of stuff didn’t happen overnight, it could take months. She knew that from firsthand experience.

However, in that amount of time, she did create a false address for herself, in an abandoned safe-house (that’s probably not so safe anymore) far from the city as well as planting fake leads that could keep any enemies of her off her trail.

When checking up on the house to make it seem credible, she had already taken down one buffoon, whom she had a small encounter with in Norway years ago. It was a short lived relief to have him out of the way, yet he wasn’t dangerous. She knew other people who definitely were.

Natasha took another deep breath and knocked. This entire journey would be a roller coaster ride, she knew it. But with Steve, she thought maybe her chances of actually finding him and bringing him home would increase. Maybe. She was hopeful.

Nobody answered the door. There was no shuffling either. And after standing in the hallway for five minutes, Natasha became impatient. They probably left, yet she had to be sure. She took a small pin from the hem of her sweater, a nice cozy knit one since fall was approaching, and got to work on the door lock.

Within two minutes, she had the door unlocked and she stepped inside. She closed the door with a click and then locked it again. All the lights were off, except the one in the living room. And once again, nobody seemed to be home.

Unless Steve was that much of a heavy sleeper, with his enhanced hearing he would’ve heard her by now. Yes, Natasha was quiet, yet not that quiet when she didn’t need to be. And she had knocked.

She scanned the living room, then walked to the kitchen, and finally entered each bedroom. Nobody was home. At first her heart sank. Had he left without her? Yet when she had touched his covers, the duvet was still slightly warm. His closet wasn’t raided of all his clothes and the coffee machine still had a few drips of the liquid left at the bottom of the container, which was still pretty hot.

He was here earlier this morning. And if not him, somebody had. But who would be in Captain America’s home? That Natasha wouldn’t know.

Then, she heard a quiet creak. Most would’ve assumed it was nothing, yet not Natasha. It sounded like the front door, as if somebody was trying to stealthy sneak in. She heard a small magnetic click, and she immediately knew who was in the room.

Her stance relaxed and yet she did’t turn to face the “intruder”.

“Steve, you know you still can’t sneak up on me,” she sighed, then turned around to see him huddled behind a bookshelf, his shield in hand

“It’s alright Sam, it’s just Nat,” he called through the door and Sam appeared as well.

“Could’ve let us know you were stopping by, would’ve cleaned up,” he added, walking into the kitchen. He flicked on the lights then sat down at the small nook in the corner. It was surrounded by windows, exhibiting a beautiful view of Brooklyn, that was now being bathed in the early morning sunshine.

“I said a week, I’m surprised you weren’t counting down the days, Rogers,” she smirked and he rolled his eyes.

“Good thing we waited,” Sam added, entering the room. “We have no clue where to even start.”

“Yeah, since we lost that ‘breadcrumb’,” Steve gave a weak glare towards Natasha but she just waved him off.

“Got a laptop?” she asked instead.

There was silence and she couldn't help but laugh to herself.

“I assumed not, thank God I brought mine,” she reached for her duffel bag, which was smaller than Steve had expected if they were really going to track Bucky (not knowing how long it would take). She then brought out a computer, looking almost “heavy-duty” compared to most, and began typing.

“What’re you doing?” Steve looked over her shoulder as he saw her click in and out of desktop files and onto other icons. Then she began searching the web.

“Looking through HYDRA’s files,” she stated.

“You hacked into them?” Sam asked.

“No, that would take longer than just a few clicks. After throwing all of SHIELD’s data onto the internet, HYDRA’s secrets should be out there too. If we know what we’re looking for then,” she stopped there as something caught her eye.

A list of addresses, with the familiar title: возвращение домой

A code word, meaning the approximate translation of: homecoming.

This was a list of safe-houses.

“Is that what you think it is?” Steve asked, but Nat closed the file and kept looking.

“Yes, it’s a list of safe-houses,” she sighed and clicked through more information. 

“So he could’ve retreated there,” Steve added, hopeful.

“No. He may have a half brainwashed mind at the moment, but he’s not stupid. His handlers will search those safe-houses to retrieve him, thinking that he would go there too. No, he would retreat somewhere nobody would suspect or know about,” she explained.

“Something off of any records,” Sam connected the dots. Now everyone was looking over Natasha’s shoulder. She didn’t exactly like it, but she tolerated it.

“Well, everything like that was on records once. But if we find copies of terminated records,” she opened a new file that was located within three others on her desktop, then clicked on it, “he could possibly be there.”

“Terminated? Like gone?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” she responded. And quickly scrolled past a document regarding her graduation ceremony. These were her files, backed up on this computer and locked behind multiple passwords for a reason. It was extremely secure. And they were the few things that remained secret, expect from Nick who had her put the files onto this computer after she burned the originals.

“But what agency would have safe-houses that relates to Bucky and is fully terminated?” Steve asked.

“The one and only Red Room,” she huffed and she could feel Steve’s muscles tense. “Or at least they are said to be fully terminated, but who knows for sure.”

“So where do we start?” Sam asked.

“Buckle up, boys. We’re going to Vermont.”

o0o

Sam had went back to his own house to pack, leaving Steve and Natasha alone in his apartment. He began packing clothes, some food and weapons into his duffel bag that was nearly two times larger than Nat’s. He had obviously noticed.

“You seem to pack light,” he eyed her bag.

“Only the necessities,” she shrugged.

“You don’t know how long this will last,” he added.

“True. But I’ve lived on less.”  
His eyes lingered on her as she walked out of his bedroom, trying to break his gaze. His pity gaze.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha remembers her time after the Red Room but before SHIELD. How she survived on practically nothing and was ready to die once Clint had found her. Also, another flashback into a Christmas in Paris.

(one year and four months after the graduation ceremony)

She was free. On a private mission, she had staged her own death, made it seem like her enemy had won. And she was free.

Her first instinct was to go back to her safe-house, but she knew she couldn’t. They would search for her there, just to make sure she hadn’t pulled a “stunt”. And they would check in with her contacts, send out search teams, anything to confirm if she was either dead or alive. 

So, Natalia had to run. She had to get out of Russia altogether. And so she did. Natalia bough a train ticket to Spain, which she then traveled by cargo ship to Canada. It was an intense few weeks where she had almost either starved or froze to death, yet she had made it.

The only items she had were two pairs of clothes and a gun that had only half a magazine worth of bullets left. No ID, no phone, no food, no money. She didn’t even know how she would survive. But she knew she would. She always did.

The Red Room put her through hell and back, she could handle starting from scratch. Yet, even that was even harder said than done. She had no birth certificate, no passport or other records, no form of proving who in the world she was. She could forage things, but to even try and get a normal job? That was risky.

Instead she used her skill set. She stole, robbed, and snuck into vacant apartments to sleep in during the night. Plus, Natalia never stayed in one spot long. She would only spend a maximum of two weeks in every city, making sure to erase any footprints she thought she might’ve left behind.

For a full month, Natalia had been in the clear. She was nothing but a ghost, nobody even knew she existed. She had to admit it was a tough way to live, but a good way not to die, though.

Yet after that month period, she began to get this sickening feeling that she was being followed. Of course, she always trusted her instincts, it was one of the many things she relied on fully. So she continued to move from city to city with even more caution. She didn’t leave her sleeping location until after dark to find something to eat, and didn’t dare to relocated to a new town until after midnight.

But this feeling didn’t leave her, and she began to notice one person frequently. A man with blonde hair. She had seen him in every city since Ontario, in different clothes and disguised as almost different people, yes, but this was no coincidence.

As she retreated to the small abandoned single story house she had been staying for the past three days, she felt that same presence. Calmly, she entered the house, closed the door, and drew her gun, then waited patiently behind the kitchen counter where some cover was provided.

Suddenly, she heard a crash from the tiny living room. He had decided to enter through a widow, compared to through the front door, probably suspecting that she would expect him from that entrance point. But Natalia was prepared, she shot a few times at him, yet he always seemed to manage to dodge the bullets.

There was only a few bullets left in her gun, she hadn’t been able to restock in Calgary. This was becoming more of an issue. Boom, another bullet gone. Boom, boom. Two bullets gone.

He was fast. Different from any other person she had fought. He didn’t get close, instead shot something at her. An arrow? This man was trying to ambush her with a literal bow and arrow?! It shocked her, and must’ve distracted her.

She shot at him two more times, and then once more only to notice her gun had ran out of bullets. He took the opportunity to hit her with an arrow, yet it didn’t puncture her, or kill her. No, it sent electric shocks through her veins and causes her to become lightheaded.

She didn’t loose consciousness. No, Natalia was still wide awake, but her muscles wouldn’t comply and everything seemed blurry.

He didn’t waste time, putting her hands into cuffs and restricting her legs and midsection as well. Then chained her onto one of the strong wooden posts that stuck out in the middle of the hallway.

“You better talk, I was supposed to kill you on site,” he said and took off his gloves, then kneeled down to her level.

She didn’t talk. Instead looked defiantly at the blonde.

“Hawkeye, don’t suppose you know me?” he nodded at her, as if giving an introduction. “And you’re the famous Black Widow. SHIELD’s had you on their watch list for a while, yet after the assassination in Paris? Christmas Eve, do you recall? You’ve been the main target of all of our operations. Impressive on how you could stay hidden for six months since then.”  
Natalia remembered that day. Paris, December 24, 2002. The first Christmas she ever celebrated. And what she had thought was her last.

o0o

(ten months after the graduation ceremony)

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he breathed in the chilled air. James stood next to her on the rooftop over looking Paris. She had finished their mission. 

They had been disguised as a couple attending a Christmas Gala that a French politician had thrown. Multiple government officials were attending, creating a perfect scenario for the Russian Government to strike, and therefore, for Natalia and James to kill one of the most powerful executives in France. For that night, James was a descendant of the Duke of Normandy, and Natalia was his date.

It was nice that they could show their feelings towards one another publicly, yet with a job to finish, it was barely enjoyable. Natalia had excused herself to use the restroom, leaving James to talk amongst the politicians. 

He soon approached their target and started a natural conversation, while Natalia got into position. She had to aim perfectly, and mask where the shot had came from so it wouldn’t be traced back to her.

She had found a perfect viewing point of the entire ballroom from a balcony, three stories up. Not many could take a shot from that height and land it with accurate precision, yet Natalia knew she could.

The rifle that the Red Room had said was stored in a large wardrobe was present, and she easily looked through the scope, took her aim and fired.

She watched as James yelled out, calling for help, all an act. While she quickly rejoined him, not to draw suspicion. Yet with James near the politician at the time of the crime, there was no reason to assume that his “beloved” was the cause to this disastrous event. And luckily, her sweet and innocent masquerade caused for no such accusations to land on her.

Now the task was done. James and Natalia had changed out of their fancy attire and were wearing more common clothes for a couple on Christmas Eve. Her a long, yet simple dark green dress, with black tights and a matching heavy coat that shielded her from the cold. And him, wearing casual black pants, a white dress shirt and a navy blue wool coat. They stood on the roof, eventually sitting down when their legs got tired, overlooking the Eiffel Tower that sparkled above the thin layer of snow on the ground.

It was almost inhumane how quickly they moved on from a mission, from taking a life. But that’s just one of the affects the Red Room had on them. 

“I don’t even remember last Christmas Eve,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Natalia looked at him. How his eyes almost sparkled at the thought of the holiday. She for one had never celebrated it. To her it was just another winter day. One, for some odd reason, that usually consisting of a mission. People seemed to let their guards down on the holidays, only one more reason for the Red Room and KGB to send their best agents to carry out a task.

“I’ve never had a Christmas,” she responded to his remark. Now she felt his eyes on her, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, bringing her closer to him.

They sat in silence for a moment. Natalia basked in his warmth that radiated off of his coat. She laid her head against his chest, her cheek rubbing against the itchy surface of the wool, yet she didn’t mind. No, she loved this.

“Tell me what it’s like, Christmas,” she whispered to him after a while. 

He shifted and she watched a trace of a smile hint at his features. 

“If you remember,” she added. Forgetting the fact that he may not even really know what it’s like.

“I do. Pieces of it yes, but I do. Yet it’s hard to explain, and my memory of it is blurry but…” his voice became softer as he scrunched up his eyebrows, deep in thought. “I remember it being warm, like a hug. Just that feeling of love and gratefulness and joy. I remember singing songs, as just a boy, and receiving small gifts too, but mostly giving. There was a lot of giving.”  
Natalia looked up at him with a sort of wonder as he relayed the story. It seemed like a far off fantasy at the time, and she didn’t expect to ever feel that sort of comfort in her life.

“My aunt would cook these delicious meals. And my sister, I think I had a sister, she loved to bake. She made these cookies that… they were amazing,” he added. “And when we were young we would play in the snow for hours until we almost froze, then we would go inside, sit by the fireplace, and my father would tell us stories. I don’t know what of, but it always seemed to make me laugh.”

As James spoke, Natalia tried to imagine a young little James. The joy that would bounce off his face, the laugh he would have. How happy and innocent he would be. And it pained her that all of this was eventually taken away from him.

As James spoke, he watched Natalia’s expressions change, and even watched her smile contently at his retelling of a feeling she had never felt. He imagined little Natalia, so young and innocent, already being crafted and shaped into a weapon. She never had a childhood. Joy was taken from her before she could even experience it, and that pained his heart. 

“I could try to remember more. Try to relive it in my head, but I’ll never get those Christmases again,” he sighed. Natalia nodded, almost sadly at his acceptance of this life. “But tonight, nobody’s watching us. Not even Russian operatives. Natalia, I want to give you your first Christmas.”

Her head snapped up to his. She looked into his eyes. And they were filled with that same look of love and comfort as when he was retelling his past Christmases.

“Those Christmas memories are from the past, I want to make some new ones in the present, and in the future.”

He stood up and held his out his gloved hand for her to take. She did and stood up alongside him.

“What do you say, Natalia? Would you be my Christmas present?” he twirled her into his arms, with her red hair, decently long, flowing in the wind. She smiled up at him as his arms criss crossed along her waist.

“Only if you can be my Christmas future,” she responded in a whisper. She noticed that her voice sounded oddly breathy. And as the words flowed out of her mouth, she could see her own breath in the cold atmosphere.

“Of course, my love,” he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. It caused a cold shiver to rush down her spine and her lips tingled to the sensation. His soft warm ones seemed to heat her own that were in the midst of freezing.

“You’re cold,” he laughed as he took in a breath and that only caused more butterflies to flutter around in her stomach.

“And you’re warm,” she smiled against his mouth, which made him deepen the kiss. He eventually broke it and admired her now flushed cheeks. If he had pointed it out, Natalia would’ve said it was from the chilled wind, yet she assumed he knew the real reason. 

The sound of church bells interrupted his gaze, and immediately he took her hand and pulled her towards the stairs to the ground level.

“We only have six hours until morning, and I don’t want to waste a second of it,” he spoke as they continued to walk down the metal stairs. Eventually, they made it to the street and began walking carelessly along the road.

“I agree, let’s not waste a second,” she held her gloved hand in his as they made their way towards the city. Natalia didn’t know what was in store for the rest of the night, yet she knew she would love every waking moment of it.

o0o

(back in Canada, one year and four months after the graduation ceremony)

“So you still stay quiet?” he sighed, then took out one of his arrows and put it to her head. “It’s your last chance, I have a mission to complete.”  
“Then do it,” she spat. It was the most she had ever spoke to him. And there was little trace of an accent on her tongue, which surprised him. He thought he was tracking a Russia, yet Natalia knew that she had to blend in with Canadians, so she figured she would have to speak like one too.

At this he hesitated, backing away and seemed to removed the arrow from her forehead. She sighed, annoyed. She had once craved this life, freedom, yet this wasn’t freedom she was living. No, she still hid, she still killed and caused crime. She was still that assassin the Red Room had made her, that spy that could take a life within a second without hesitation. Natalia realized she wasn’t even human, and she didn’t deserve to continue to plague this world.

Every night she was graced by nightmares and memories of all the evils she had committed. Every day her interactions with others were laced with the reminders of all the lives she had taken. This realization only hit her harder one day a few weeks prior. When she was shopping in a pharmacy and made calculations on how to kill every person in the store within a minute. This included an elderly lady, a young boy, a pregnant woman, innocent people! It scared her half to death and she had cried the entire night afterwards.

Natalia realized after that moment, she didn’t deserve to live. She didn’t even have the will to. James was her will to live, her Yasha. She tried… she tried to continue without him, yet….

“Please, just do it. Do the world a favor,” she said, leaning into the tip of the arrow, ready. She was ready for death.

But he pulled the arrow away and placed it back into his quill. “No.”

No? What was he doing? Was he unchaining her? Though, he kept the handcuffs on her wrists he released the rest of the restrictions from around her body.

“I’ve seen eyes like yours before, when I looked at myself in the mirror at one point. You think you’re worthless, evil and have no place anywhere. I’m here to tell you’re not. They’ve just broken you beyond belief,” he explained to her quizzical reaction. “And you do have a place. You will. I’ll give that to you.”

And Clint had. She couldn’t ever show how grateful she was for it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio borrow a quinjet from Tony, Steve asks Nat about how she knew Bucky, and the crew thinks they may finally have a lead.

Sam had returned back to Steve’s apartment around an hour later, and then they made their way to the Avenger’s tower.

“We can’t just waltz in Natasha,” Steve had groaned when she proposed the idea. He sat in the passenger seat, with Sam in the back along with their “luggage”.

“I do, all the time,” she scoffed and continued driving through the packed New York streets.

“Well, not all of us are like you,” he chuckled.

“That’s extremely accurate,” she nodded. “And please, when will Stark ever turn me down?”

“He’s done it before, he’ll do it again,” Steve nagged.

“Seriously Rogers? And I don’t want to catch a commercial flight to Vermont, or drive all the way there. You can try to book tickets if you would like.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll borrow a Quinjet.”

“Finally he agrees,” Sam sighed from the back seat.

Steve just rolled his eyes and Natasha stifled a laugh.

***

Tony was actually rather willing to let them borrow the small jet, only to ask a heap of questions first which made Natasha rather uncomfortable.

“So let me get this straight? You need the quinjet to find your brainwash HYDRA friend? And this man, Sam, is coming along too?” he interrogated. To be honest, Natasha thought he sounded like a dad talking to his daughter when she asks to borrow the car. The scenarios couldn’t be closer matched.

“And what do you have to do with any of this, Red?” his focus turned to her.

“I’m the best one to help track him. He’s a top level assassin, finding leads on him won’t be a piece of cake,” she gave the half truth.

“But you also…” Steve began, yet she gave him a death glare that shut him right up. Thankfully, Tony wasn’t paying too much attention the entire conversation. Instead he was helping himself to a drink. It wasn’t even nine in the morning, but Natasha didn’t expect anything less from the billionaire.

“Just bring her back in one piece,” Tony sighed, motioning them towards the elevator.

“We will,” Natasha said and walked down the hallway.

“Steve?!” Tony called after them.

“We’ll try our best!” he called back.

***

With the jet on autopilot and on course, Natasha got straight back to looking through files on her laptop. She read through anything and everything, hoping there was at least a crumb of information that could lead to a trail.

Yet all she was met with was reminders of her past and records of everything they had done to James through those years. She stopped on a record sheet. Recorded on March 4, 2003. The date caught her eye. That was… when they were…

Subjects within Correlation of Event: James Buchanan Barnes, Natalia Alianova Romanov

Fouls: disobedience, unauthorized and unpermitted encounters between trainer and trainee, violence towards guardsmen and those of higher ranking, roaming past curfew, entrance of another’s quarters, displays of attachment, inappropriate correlation between trainer and trainee.

Violations of: Code 13, Code 49, Code 56, Code 673, Code 854, Code 879

Punishment Obtained:  
-James Buchanan Barnes: medical treatment (relation to memory and brain capacity), physical retribution, undergo intensive training  
-Natalia Alianova Romanov: physical retribution, mental retribution, under intensive training

Natasha’s eyes roamed the screen. She didn’t dare to read the detailed record of the event from Madame B’s viewpoint. And it shocked her how she had never seen this file before. 

“Hey,” Steve tapped on her shoulder, and Natasha quickly exited out of the file. Even if it was written in Russian, she couldn’t help it, it was a natural reaction.

“Hey,” she looked up at him. She could tell just from his expression that he was going to ask her something, something he knew she didn’t want to answer. “Just spit it out, Rogers.”  
He nodded, then took a deep breath before speaking. “Why didn’t you tell Tony about the real reason you’re going with us to track Bucky?”

“I try to keep my secrets close to my chest,” she replied without hesitance. The last thing she needed was hesitance when answer a question like this.

“But why? You don’t have to,” he argued.

She just shrugged her shoulders.

“Which brings me to my next question, you never answered me from before. You never told me how you knew Bucky other than the fact that he trained you. I know a lot of people had trained you during your lifetime, I can assume that. What makes him special?” he continued.

Now, Natasha looked like a fool, just staring at Steve with a blank face.

“I believe at this point you can figure it out Steve,” she sighed and closed her eyes.

“You were more than just a trainer and trainee weren’t you?” he questioned, yet his voice was soft. At least softer than Natasha had expected. “Were you two… in a…?”

“Relationship? Yes,” she said quietly. Sure Sam was asleep. He had said that he woke up at 2 in the morning the night before and wanted to get some rest before they began their search, yet she still had to be careful. Some would call it a “habit”, but to her, it was more instinct. 

“Would you tell me… how?” he asked. His voice seemed so meek and quiet, like he was afraid to ask. And she honestly assumed he was. At first she wanted to snap at him, tell him it wasn’t any of his business. But, this was Steve. He was her closest friend other than Clint, and she had to admit, she trusted him with her life. Plus, James, or Bucky, was like family to Steve. She could tell from the way he talked about him. Natasha didn’t want to lie to him anymore. She could tell him this truth.

“He came to train us when I was fifteen, or so. I don’t really know my birthday, other than the fact I was born in 1984,” she started. Steve decided to sit down once he realized that Natasha wasn’t going to murder him on the spot. “I don’t know how old he was, he looked like he was in his early twenties, maybe even 19? My memory was a bit blurry on those details. Not like the Red Room would tell you that sort of stuff anyways.”  
Again she took a deep breath, reminding herself that she could trust Steve. It was odd how she had to keep the memo going on repeat in her head. Somethings just stuck, keeping secrets from ANYONE was one of them. And she hated it. Though, it was useful in many cases.

“He never stayed around long. Only trained me a couple times in the first year. I saw him more in the second, but the year of my graduation…” her voice faded, “that’s when I really met him.”  
“What do you mean?” Steve asked, yet she could tell he was trying his best to make his voice seem calm to not scare her off. He already seemed surprised she had told him this much.

“I started working more missions with him. Started developing a sort of trust. People usually didn’t look out for your back in the Red Room. He was the first person to do that for me, so I did it for him as well. Not to mention he began to remember parts of his past. The brainwashing seemed to be wearing. He remembered his name, real name, yet kept it a secret until he told me.”  
Steve seemed to perk up at that notion. But Natasha didn’t dwell on the topic. She prayed that he wouldn’t ask if James remembered him. Because James hadn’t, and she didn’t want to break that sort of news on him. After all he’s went through? She would spare him that pain.

“I ‘graduated’, became the Black Widow. He told me to watch their lies. We both knew that what we were doing wasn’t right. That we were killing for evil people…”

There was always that question people had asked. Naïve people would ask. A question Tony had asked her after discovering one of her extensive files when she first joined SHIELD (him and his stupid hacking pranks). 

Why did you kill for them if you knew it wasn’t right? Why did you stay loyal to them? Why didn’t you walk away?

They always asked those questions, because they would never understand. She had grown up brainwashed. She had tactics and habits ingrained into her head. And if she didn’t succeed? If she failed at ANYTHING? She knew she would be met by death. 

So Natasha prayed Steve wouldn’t ask. And he didn’t. But she knew he was thinking it, so she explained anyways.

“But we wanted to stay alive. Maybe we really didn’t ‘live’ but as long as our hearts were still pumping blood, we kept it that way.”

She waited for Steve’s reaction, yet it never came. Instead, he seemed to be listening intently, like it was a debriefing from a challenging mission. Natasha liked it better that way. He seemed to give her less pity looks when he took the information like that.

“And he said we would escape, someday, together,” the weight of that statement hit her like a punch to the gut. It even caused Steve to turn his head. 

She could read his thoughts. That: hey wait up? Why isn’t he here then? thoughts. 

“It was a promise he made to me before I went through the procedure. And shortly afterwards was when we… when we fell for each other, if you call it like that. We did everything in secret, never told a soul. Mostly just lasting gazes, some delicate touches here and there, but nothing… major,” she sighed. At just the memories her heart ached all over again. “But it turned into something more. I did love him, I still do. Never would I chose anything or anybody else over James. He was my home.”

Steve seemed to discard the whole fact she had called Bucky, James, and looked at her with a confused expression. Like he didn’t believe this was the end of the story, it definitely wasn’t.

“What happened then?” he questioned, his voice still soft and gently. He tentatively put a hand over her own, somehow knowing this was hurting her greatly. She hadn’t shown it through tears, or even breath hitches, yet he could tell. She was flustered and seemed… different.

“Then we were caught,” Natasha sucked in a breath and she could even feel Steve tense at the thought. “I was nineteen, him probably not older than 26? They broke into the room, tore us apart. They wiped him in front of me. Tortured us both. Beat us. Put us into intensive training. Separated us for good.”  
She began to shake. The memory that had filled her nightmares. The topic she had never spoken about out loud. It always had the same affect on her. She remembered how it felt when those guards grabbed her and struck her down. She remembered how it felt when he was strapped into that chair. She remembered that pain during all the beatings, yes, but it had never compared to that pain when he had seen right through her, and didn’t know her.

“Shhh, it’s okay, Nat. It’s okay,” he pulled her into a hug and just held her until her tremors calmed down and she could regain her breathing.

“A month later, one night, I had found him in the training room. He didn’t recognize me, yet I never gave up. I never gave up on him. But they never put us back together for missions, probably think he’d regain his memory. And then a few days later,” a tear now fell down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away, “they said he had died. I had never felt more alone than at that moment.”  
She felt Steve hold her tighter. How did he know that was exactly what she needed? It was as if he knew that pain. And maybe he did. She didn’t know at that time, but Steve had blamed himself for Bucky’s death since forever. Bucky had been Steve’s brother. The night he had died, Steve had never felt more alone. 

“Next independent mission I had,” she continued, while recollecting herself, “I faked my own death. It was hard to do with the KGB being so diligent, but I had managed to do it. I found a route to Canada. Convincing myself I was doing this for him, yet it only left me feeling more guilty, because…”

Natasha’s voice choked up again. Her throat felt tight, like she could barely breath.

“Because it was my fault we were caught… if I had been more careful, then we wouldn’t have… he would be… I would…”  
“It wasn’t your fault. I’m telling you, don’t do that to yourself, Nat,” he held her against his chest and let her tears bleed into his shirt. Her ragged breaths made his own hitch as he breathed normally.

“I should’ve been more careful…” she continued.

“No, you didn’t do a thing wrong Nat. Not a thing,” he stopped her from talking, but her thoughts still raced in her head of all the things she had done wrong. How she could’ve prevented disaster from striking. “You found solace in him when there was no hope around you.”

She managed to nod her head while still wrapped in Steve’s arms.

“We’re going to get him back. I know that. We’ll search until we find him,” he added.

“I should get back to that,” she rubbed away her last tear and shuffled to reach for her laptop.

“I bet he loved you a lot Nat,” he smiled at her as she clicked through more documents, already returning her focus onto the task at hand. “And I bet he still does. He didn’t kill you when he could’ve.”

Steve began to walk back to the pilot’s seat to check on their course when Natasha responded.

“Twice,” she stated. Her voice was oddly quiet, but Steve didn’t make it a point to remark on. “He didn’t kill me twice when he could’ve.”

“So there’s hope.”

“Always, if you look in the right places.”

Steve couldn’t agree more.

“And Natasha?”

“Yeah,” she stopped what she was typing to look up at Steve. 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Telling me this, I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

He then walked to the other side of the jet, sat down, took out a notebook and began scribbling in it. No sketching. He had mentioned that it was an easy way for him to calm himself down.

As he did this, she let his words sink in. He understood. Or at least he was trying to. Natasha was grateful for that.

o0o

(6 months later, in Salzburg, Austria)

“Are you sure you’re okay to walk, Nat?” Steve questioned, limping himself. Sam was only shortly behind, with a big gash on his forehead.

They had searched tirelessly for six full months, half a year. The time went fast since they traveled from place to place, yet Natasha still couldn’t believe they had spent that much time on the search and picked up nothing.

Now, when scoping out the city of Salzburg after a man with a similar description was reported, they ran into a gang of HYDRA agents. Steve, Natasha and Sam all made it out alive, but just barely. They each had a unique set of wounds and bruises.

“Yeah, it doesn’t feel broken,” she continued to limp through the door of their motel room.

“Somebody literally shot a bullet through your leg, it must be at least fractured,” Sam argued after he sat down on the couch. 

“Fractured, not broken,” she corrected.

“Listen to Sam, sit down and I’ll get you the first aid kit and a towel,” Steve agreed.

“And what about you, Captain? You got a few bullets in the arm and shoulder as well,” she smirked.

“Well I have super solider healing abilities that might take care of the pain and the damage,” he shot back from inside the bathroom where he was wetting a towel and retrieving the first aid kit from under the sink.

“Stupid serum,” Natasha cursed under her breath, which caused Steve to chuckle.

She assessed her wounds, as he searched for the med kit. A bullet in her leg, another bullet wound that grazed her bicep (but it hurt like hell), a stab wound on her lower hip and a decently sized gash on cheek. Nevertheless, she looked like shit. Not to mention how her skin was practically littered with bruises.

“Here,” Steve handed her the towel and the kit and she began to strip out of her catsuit. Both Steve and Sam had seen her change in and out of the get-up before, and she honestly didn’t mind, yet she found it funny how both of them looked away or left the room. And it certainly made her laugh how red Steve’s cheeks got when she was doing the act.

Effortlessly, even with the wounds, Natasha shedded the suit, and attended to the wound on her lower hip as well as the graze on her arm. She first cleaned each gash with the towel, compressed it for a bit to try to stop the major bleeding and then tightly wrapped the gauze around the area.

She then changed into a fresh set of clothes before shifting her focus onto her other wounds.

“You can look now, boys,” she joked. Allowing Steve to come out from the bathroom he locked himself into. Sam just shrugged, turned around and continued to dab another wet towel to his forehead. 

“Austria, check. Any other places you think me might be? We’ve checked every safe house on that list. But it led to nothing but dead ends,” Steve sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. The frame creaked under his weight.

“I don’t think we can just use my files anymore. They don’t hold enough information. Something that might could be found at the source,” she stated calmly, yet the feeling Natasha felt was far from calm.

“You mean, the Red Room? I thought you said it was terminated,” Sam clarified.

“We thought the same about HYDRA, right? There’s always loose ends that sprout up into something new. We have to search in Russia, it’s one of the only countries we haven’t searched…"  
“No, you don’t have to do this, Natasha. We can find a different way,” Steve interjected.

“There is no other way. We have no information on anything, Steve. This is the way we’ll find him,” she argued.

“You never went back to that country for a reason. Does that reason stills stand?” he continued, ignoring her statement.

“Yes,” she sighed. “But if this leads to him, it’ll… it’ll be worth it.”  
Steve gave her a sad expression but nodded. Then looked to Sam.

“You sure about this, Natasha?” he asked.

“Yes,” she stated. 

“Then let’s go to Russia,” Sam shrugged and began packing his things.

“Where in Russia?” Steve asked.

“Not in Russia anymore, Belarus. Was part of the Soviet Union when I was a girl. We have to go to the Maryina Horka Forest,” she explained.

He nodded, yet there was still a questioning look in his eye, asking her if she really wanted to do this.

“It’s our only chance Steve. I’ll take this for him,” she whispered under her breath.

“And if there’s nothing?”

“We infiltrate a HYDRA base nearby and demand answers,” she replied.

Steve nodded again, more solemnly this time around.

“We’ll find him,” he reached out and squeezed her hand.

“I know we will,” she squeezed back. 

It was the same hope that had kept them searching since the beginning. That hope that they would bring James, or Bucky, home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Nat and Sam travel to the Red Room, which only brings back the horrid memories Natasha had tried to block out for most of her life. Not to mention the fact that Steve and Sam see the truth on Natasha's origins.

Natasha landed the quinjet by the academy. Thank the Lord it looked empty and abandoned. She had let our a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“This is it?” Sam asked, exiting the jet.

Natasha only nodded, then began to walk forward. She made her way on the path she had rarely ever taken. They were never allowed outside of the confined walls.

Steve noted the tall brick walls and reached out to touch it. Natasha slapped his hand before he could.

“Used to be electric. Mechanics found ways to put an electric current through the bricks, I don’t know how, don’t ask. I don’t want you to get shocked accidentally,” she stated, then continued forward.

She couldn’t bare to see Steve’s reaction to the statement. Natasha had to assume he knew this would be no pretty sight, yet she had a feeling he had underestimated how ugly was her “ugly”.

“This was ‘Maryina Academy’. ‘School for the orphaned girl. Mission to bring education to the unfortunate’ ?” Sam asked, reading the plaque that was translated into three main languages for all to read. First Russian, then English, and Germany was stated as well.

Steve looked around, then up at the metal gate that had “Академия Марьиной” posted above it in large steel letters.

“It was a cover, to make the building seem like a boarding school that took in the orphaned. An excuse to not draw suspicion on why nobody ever left, only entered,” she sighed. “And we were all orphans, just we didn’t come here by choice.”  
Steve walked up to the lock, then hit it with his shield. Why did this whole scene feel backwards? Why did it feel like the day they roamed Steve’s old military base? Was she in a daze like he had been?

Natasha walked through those gates, like it was the first time. She had only been five. Five. And it all felt the same. Only then, she had thought she was going somewhere safe. This time, Natasha felt like she was entering a death trap.

Even though the outside wall was still standing perfect and strong, Natasha couldn’t say the same for the Red Room itself. It was abandoned by far. Most of the windows cracked out, the only thing preventing intruders were the sturdy iron bars in front of each window.

She walked up to the main entrance, then kicked through the glass on the door. It was the only window not guarded by metal. She slipped through without getting cut by the glass shards, then opened the door from the inside to let Steve and Sam in.

They hadn’t said a word since the gate. Instead they looked around at the ghost of a building, waiting for Natasha to lead the way.

She saw so many things. Memories of her roaming these halls from since she was a child to a teenager. She saw the girls walking with proper form, not moving an inch out of line. She saw Madame B and the other trainers watch over them with burning gazes. She saw KGB officials being welcomed through those doors and watched them inspect every girl that had just went through their graduation ceremony. 

Natasha walks towards the great hall, still in her daze. She follows the men sent by the Russian organization to where the girls ate. She was only six. Only six when she had heard him speak those words. Those few sentences to Madame B.

“You have trained useful agents here, but we need one that is powerful and incredibly skilled. We need a set of those. Do not give us a full class of girls to choose from, no, for these next generation of agents, only leave one standing. Through the course of eliminated based off of skill, the strongest will last. And we will have our agent,” he explained, nodded at the agents of his choosing from the graduating class, then left.

“Nat? You okay?” Steve brought her out of her daze. She nodded, then led them up the stairs, passing the training room as quickly as possible. She didn’t even want to get started on all the memories that haunted that room.

On her way to the forth floor, where Madame B’s main office was located, Natasha stopped on the third. The third, where the dormitories and quarters were. As a girl she slept with the rest of the girls in her class until it dwindled down to just herself, where she got a “private room”.

She looked inside one of the doorframes and saw about two dozen of metal framed beds in perfect rows. Natasha could just hear the girls sleeping, their breaths perfectly controlled. Each hand tethered to their bed with a pair of metal hand cuffs. Once of the cuffs must’ve still been there since Sam walked forwards and touched it with his fingertips.

“Handcuffs?” he asked.

“They locked you in while you slept. One of the trainers had the key and would let us out in the morning,” she explained, yet her head was in a total different space compared to the abandoned room.

She saw the number of girls sleeping in the room became less and less. Nya was eliminated first, for crying after shooting a gun, saying it she was scared of it. Luciana was second, for sneaking in bread for Byatrice, who had been punished from lack of performance during training (her punishment being she didn’t receive dinner but did receive a slashing). Byatrice was also eliminated that night.

Natasha remembered how she feared she would receive the same fate, so she did everything in her ability to not give them a reason to eliminate her. She trained harder, listened, became that “unbreakable” “never failing” agent of Madame B’s dreams.

She eventually noticed that she was lingering in the room, and made her way to the fourth floor. This was where the trainer’s quarters were located, as well as their offices (for the few that had one).

Like muscle memory, Natasha made her way to the third door on the right side of the long hallway that broke off of the stairwell from the left. Seemed complicated, yet it was nothing but. That was his room. Once she had entered she wished she hadn’t.

Her legs buckled underneath her and she fell onto the ground. Sam reached for her, but Natasha swatted him away, instead backing up into the corner to look around the empty room.

All those moments. All those memories. All those kisses. All those touches. Everything. It was usually here. A tear slipped down her cheek and she wiped it away.

“This was his room,” Steve made the connection, his voice quietly stated the idea to Sam out loud. And maybe to himself as well.

“Nat do you need…?” he began, but she interrupted him quickly.

“The office is on the other end of the hall, eighth door in the corridor that broke off of the stairwell from the right. You can’t miss it. Should still have her name engraved into the glass,” Natasha barely made out the instructions while still backed up in her corner. “I’ll meet you there.”

“What name?” Sam asked.

“Madame B,” she responded, almost weakly, hoping they would leave the room before she would break. 

Steve closed the door behind him just in time. The tears continued flowing. And she couldn’t do anything to stop them.

Eventually, she forced herself to get up from out of the corner and walk around the room. She sat on his bed as she regained her composure. As she regained her thoughts. When all of a sudden, she heard a boom.

“Steve! Sam!” she let her adrenaline take control and she quickly ran out the door and into the hallway. As fast as light, Natasha made it to Madame B’s office, yet nobody was there.

“Sam? Steve?” she called frantically as she opened the door to find the place destroyed by, most likely, a bomb.

“Steve! Sam! Answer me!” she yelled climbing through the rubble.

“So those two men are your friends, Natalia,” a voice came from behind her. She didn’t recognize it whatsoever. She turned around and didn’t recognize the face either.

“Who are you? Where are they?” she asked, gun drawn on a man that looked only a few years older than her.

“Oh, how sad you can’t even see the family resemblance,” he mocked. “Here’s a hint, my last name is Baikin.”

Then she saw it. The similar features. The name. Even the hair.

“Madame B had a son?” she asked out loud. Her voice quiet

“Yes, had him trained in a different facility so that’s how we’ve never met, yet we have no time to catch up,” he taunted and he flung two small balls at her. They lit up with electric current and struck her down onto the ground causing her to drop her weapon. He had copied her widow bites. She wanted to strangle him just for that.

“I’v been trying to track you Natalia for years now. When you joined the Avengers I deemed you as ‘untouchable’, that they would have you protected,” he explained as he began to cuff her ankles and wrists. “But Mother insisted that everyone can be reached, if you strike at the right time. I joined HYDRA, helped SHIELD fall. And now, I’m going to kill you.”

“Then do it,” she taunted back. But Natalia didn’t want to die. That was the difference from when she had said those words to Clint compared to this man. She didn’t want to die.

“Nah, I have an audience waiting,” he laughed, then took out a tranquilizer gun and brought it to her wrist. “Plus, death by gunshot is too good for you. We’ll find a way to make you suffer. Your friends along with you.”  
“Leave them, take me,” she tried. This is what she had meant when she told Steve he wasn’t safe with her. It was these types of people that would bring him and Sam into the mix of her affairs.

“Oh, so noble,” he chuckled. “But no, they found some information on the Winter Solider in one of the files. Now they leave me no choice but to kill them.”

He hit the button on the tranquilizer gun and Natasha blacked out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madame B and other operatives of HYDRA hold Natasha, Steve and Sam captive, and new clues on James' whereabouts are uncovered.

When she woke up again, she was in a dark room, lit by a few old lightbulbs. But she knew the place. Maybe even just by the smell. Dried blood used to cake the walls. Screams always came from the ‘windowless room’, as she and the other girls liked to call it. The cold ground which she was sitting on made her shiver. She had been here before, after failing tasks, or disobeying. She had been here after James was wiped. All the memories flashback like broken pieces of film. All the pain came back and Natasha wanted to get out of this horrid place as quickly as possible, yet she couldn’t move. Her hands were literally tied. 

“It’s a pleasure that you grace us with your presence, Natalia,” a familiar voice said in a ‘sing-song’ tone. Natasha hated everything about it.

She didn’t look at her old handler, or boss, whatever you would call her. Instead she looked for Steve and Sam. They were both cuffed as well and trapped behind metal bars. That was where observers would usually watch. The thought made her shiver.

Steve locked eyes with her first. His was full of distress and fear. Yes, fear. Before Natasha could look away from him, though, he nodded quickly towards his hands. His cuffs were off, broken actually. They probably had underestimated his strength, and she was grateful for that. She nodded back curtly before Madame B could notice.

Sam was there too, looking at her and then Steve with that same look of doubt and worry. This was a horrible situation to be in. And it had been her fault, if they had went straight to the office, searched and left the facility quickly, they wouldn’t have ran into the son of her handler.

Madame B came to stand in front of Natasha. She slapped her with one of her signature backhands, as per usual (Natasha wouldn’t have expected anything less) and told her to stand.

She did, but quickly responded under her breath, “I don’t take orders from you anymore.”  
With that, the older woman laughed. “You always did when your life was at stake, and I can tell that nothing has changed. You’re no better than what you were as a girl, as a master spy and assassin. As my weapon.”

Don’t let her get in your head, Natasha kept repeating in her mind. Don’t let her hurt you. Build you amor tall and strong. Don’t let her get in your head.

It was actually a rhyme the girls in her dormitory had created themselves. They sang it quietly any time they were alone. It distracted them from every pain that plagued their hearts.

“Your little run with the Avengers was silly, a facade. We both know who you really are, Black Widow,” she continued. There was a silence and Natasha’s eyes flicked back over to Sam and Steve’s cell. Steve gave her a questioning look but Natasha shook her head, not yet.

“Usually you talked back, widow. Why so quiet?” Madame B looked to where Natasha was looking, followed how her gaze landed on the two men. “Oh, to save them? Like you ever could. Attachment is weakness, remember, though I think you learned that lesson at 19, hm?”

“What do you want with me?” Natasha finally spoke.

“I want you back. To work for HYDRA. After the Solider had escaped and most of our best agents were discovered and either killed or arrested, we’re low on operatives. You are one of the best weapons I have trained in all my years. With a bit of brainwashing, and retraining, I think you’d fit right in,” she explained.

That made Steve’s eyes go wide and Sam shifted uncomfortably in his position. Natasha sucked in a breath.

“No. I would never,” she spat.

“Then you’ll never see your Solider again. And those two will die too,” Madame B laughed at Natasha’s reaction. That face of fear, horror and sadness. That drainage of hope and spark of anger that came with it.

“You know where he is, but you haven’t brought him back…” she spoke out loud.

“Yes, because nobody has the skills to do it, but you. Though if you refuse…” she pulled a shotgun out of her jacket and brought the barrel of the gun to Natasha’s forehead.

“Now!” Natasha yelled, and Steve broke open the cell and kicked the woman over. Guards flooded in. Quickly, Sam grabbed the shotgun that had fallen out of Madame B’s hands and began to shoot at the guards. The gun wasn’t meant for long distance shots, but served its purpose, leaving three agents dead on the ground.

“Come on guys, we need something that will actually hold them off,” Sam called.

Steve was unbinding Natasha’s hands and feet, then helped her up.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Hold them off,” she commanded and Steve could only nod as he watched her run over to where Madame B was trying to get up off the ground.

“Tell me where he is,” Natasha had her in a choke hold in less than a second, and the woman gasped in surprise.

“You two have always been so protective over one another,” she only laughed. “Reminds me of that night…”

Madame B knew that the recollection night was her weakness. Any mentions of it caused Natasha to break. But she forced herself to stay strong, just for him.

“Tell me where he is, or I’ll snap your neck,” she gritted her teeth and tightened the hold.

Madame B must’ve noticed that nobody was going to save her, so she spoke. It almost humored Natasha how easily she had given up. 

“I don’t know exact coordinates, but somewhere in Switzerland,” she struggled to make out the words.

“Are you lying?” Natasha tightening her grip even more.

“No, you can check the files we obtained of his sighting, top drawer, left side of my desk,” she added quickly. “Now let me go!”

“You took everything from me. You hurt me in more ways than anybody else has. Madame B, you deserve to die,” Natasha stated, then snapped the woman’s neck before she could hear a response.

“Let’s go before they call for back-up,” Steve called.

Natasha nodded looking at the limp woman who had gave her hell. She thought she would’ve felt relieved, maybe even joyous, but Natasha felt nothing. Nothing but anger.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They fly to Switzerland, Steve reflects on what happened in their "captivity", and Natasha has a flashback.

“Where are we going again?” Sam asked while he watched her pilot the jet. Thankfully none of Madame B’s operatives had found it.

“Mürren, Switzerland,” she stated, setting the auto-pilot onto course.

“I thought the lady only said, Switzerland, not where in Switzerland,” Steve clarified.

“He had talked about it before,” Natasha sucked in a breath. “After we had passed through the small town, he said if he could go anywhere to live, it would be there. Small, desolate, and beautiful. All he needed. Said that nobody would think to look for him in a Swiss village.”

“And you didn’t think about this before we went on a wild goose chase for leads?” Sam asked, which earned him a glare from Steve.

“I didn’t think he would remember,” Natasha responded, then got up and out of the pilot’s seat. “I need to sleep. Wake me up once we get there.”

o0o

(Steve’s POV)

It was safe to say that Steve was scared. Mostly, scared for Natasha. The fact that he had broken out of his handcuffs gave him a sort of comfort over that fact that he could at least do something, but that didn’t go a long way. His heart still pounded ferociously in his chest.

He was mostly surprised that Natasha, and that older lady, were speaking in english. He assumed they would go straight for Russian, yet maybe it was part of that woman’s plan. Madame B right? Maybe she had wanted him and Sam to hear every word of what she was saying.

Steve marveled at how strong Natasha was. Even after all of the madame’s taunting and manipulation. Calling her a “weapon”, for God’s sake, she had stood strong. And when Steve heard the woman ask Natasha to become part of HYDRA, he nearly leapt out of the cell and killed the woman himself. He couldn’t loose another one of his closest friends to that operation’s clutches. 

But Natasha had said no, Madame B had drawn a gun, and before Steve could even grasp the dire danger of the situation, her heard Natasha yell: Now!

He knocked the woman into a corner, yet with not enough force to kill her. He figured Natasha would want to get some sort of information out of her.

“You alright?” he had asked, only for her to respond with an order to hold off the guards. Steve didn’t know how she kept so levelheaded. If somebody had spoke to him like that, talked about Peggy like that, he would’ve broken down already. He almost had at the mention of Bucky. But if Natasha could stay strong, so could he.

They had left the room with Madame B and a few other agents dead. He didn’t know what to expect out of Natasha’s reaction to the woman’s death, but silence was definitely not one of them.

“Are you okay, Nat?” he asked her on the way to the jet.

“I will be once we find him,” she responded quickly, then quickened her pace. 

Steve had to admit, he hated seeing her like this. And sadly, for the majority of this trip, she had been. This wasn’t the Natasha he was used to. This was the Natasha that could break at just the mention of a word or a recollection of a memory. He was used to the woman would could quip and smile halfheartedly for days. He missed her smile, but realized that everyone had their secrets. Secrets that displayed a painful, heart aching side to them. And only now, was he seeing her’s. 

o0o

(back to Nat’s POV)

A few hours later in Switzerland…

She knew exactly where to go. Everyone seemed eager once she had landed the jet, hoping this wouldn’t be another trail that ended cold. 

“Do you know where he might be?” Steve asked, shivering due to the cold. She promptly threw him a jacket she had found in one of the compartments in the plane. It barely fit his muscular figure, but it would have to do. 

“A small house on the outskirts, we spent a night there. It was abandoned then, probably still is now,” Natasha stated. 

As they made their way to the house, with Natasha leading the way, she began to recognize the little landmarks that some would think were unnoticeable. The little Church near the market square. The small school that the few children that lived there attended. Just how the pathways navigated around houses and shops felt familiar. It brought her back to that time.

o0o

(One year after the graduation ceremony) 

“Excuse me, what town is this?” Natalia asked a shopkeeper in perfect Romansh. It was a creamery shop that displayed all sorts of unique cheeses that she hadn’t even heard of before. 

Meanwhile, James was waiting patiently outside, scoping out the area and standing watch for the thugs that had chased them down into the village. Now they were stuck in the Swiss mountains, not knowing where they even were.

“Mürren. Are you lost dear?” he asked.

“No,” she stated, then gave a kind smile. “We’re just passing through. Thank you for the help.”

“There’s an inn you and your boyfriend can stay in down the street. The rates aren’t that much,” he added.

She nodded at the elderly man, sweetly, then left the shop. The sun was setting and they had to find a place to retreat before dark. An inn was risky. If those people who had been chasing them tracked them here, they would most likely choose to search the only inn located in the area. Staying in a house would be better, yet they didn’t want to stay in one already occupied.

“So, where are we?” James asked once Natalia had rejoined him.

“A place called Mürren. The man thinks we’re lost. Not the best sign,” she responded.

“We need some place to lay low for a few days, just incase. If we can find an abandoned house…”

“They won’t look there,” she finished his sentence.

“You always know what I’m thinking,” he chuckled lightly and they began walking through the streets.

“With how you’re looking at me, I think you want to kiss me,” she responded when his eyes lingered too long on her lips.

“You’re too good,” he looked down and shook his head, but a hint of a smile tainted his features. “But I want to do more than just kiss you.”

“Hm,” she looked at him slyly which only caused his smile to grow wider.

“Let’s find a place to stay in first,” he continued forward and they merged onto a trail that led to some smaller houses on the outskirts.

“The man in the shop thought you were my boyfriend,” she said while matching his walking pace. It was nice how they could have this flirtatious banter and conversations without getting caught. Natalia craved these types of missions.

“Well I think we looked rather nice together, hm?”

“If only he knew,” she sighed. And that caused James’ face to fall.

“I still think we look nice together. Though you look gorgeous whether alone or with me,” he whispered in her ear. Just the feeling of his breath against her skin made her shiver. 

“I prefer to be with you,” she whispered back. Stopping in front of a house that seemed old and abandoned. There were no lights lit inside and overall it gave that “vacant aura”. 

“I do too.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the group of thugs that had followed them ambushed. Eight agents came from all directions, guns drawn. Natalia grabbed her own that was attached to her hip, and James retrieved his smaller rifle that had been hidden under his coat.

“You think we can take them all?” he asked with a smile. He already knew her answer.

“The Black Widow and the Winter Solider working together? They don’t stand a chance,” she smirked, then fired the first shot without even removing her gaze from his face. The bullet hit the man straight in the chest. 

Now they were encountered by heavy fire, and Natalia just hoped nobody in the town below would hear the noise of guns shooting. They acted quickly to try to get the situation under control. 

Natalia made her way towards a set of the agents, electrocuting two of them with her widow bites, leaving one to take care of with a simple punch, dodge and kick. Then she helped James, who was the target of most of the shots, yet of course none ever hit him. She drew her gun, shot three times landing each on three of the thugs, leaving the last for James to take out with a punch to the head. That metal arm definitely came in handy.

“They ruined the moment,” he shook his head and sighed. It made Natalia laugh. A bubbly laugh that made his heart skip a beat.

“We should clean this up before anybody comes around to investigate,” she said after a moment.

“Yes, but first,” he stepped forward and placed a kiss onto her lips. It was short lived as he caressed her cheek before backing away.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” she chuckled.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for weeks while we were on this mission, but they were watching us too closely. Can you blame me?” James responded.

“Hm,” she walked up to him again, until she stood right in front of him. Then paused for a moment pretending to contemplate the idea. “No.”

And she returned the favor. Pressing her lips to his, shortly before backing away and walking towards the cluster of bodies.

“God, I love you,” she thought she heard him mutter under his breath.

“What?” she asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” he responded.

Natalia still didn’t know if that had been her imagination, or if he had really said those four words. If he had actually admitted his love to her that day or not.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha, Steve and Sam find James. But does James remember?

“This is it?” Sam asked. Natasha nodded as they walked up the pathway to the old house. It seemed nearly the same as how she remembered, just a bit older and run down.

As Steve knocked on the door, Natasha turned to face the clearing in front of the cottage. That clearing where they fought together and kissed only minutes later. That place where she thought he said an “I love you” under his breath. 

After a few moments, the door didn’t open, yet it wasn’t unlocked either. 

“Should we kick it open, or just look around first? Maybe there’s a back door?” Sam asked.

“No, this is the only entrance point over than some windows,” she responded, being snatched out of her daze.

“So I should kick it open?” Steve asked.

“No, that’ll make him think we’re the enemy if we enter in an aggressive fashion. I can pick the lock,” she stated, then took a small wallet looking bag out of her belt. She opened the fold to reveal multiple types of lock picks, and chose the smallest one. She had remembered in the past that this lock was rusty. The smaller one could navigate through that easily. 

“I didn’t even know you had a lock pick set,” Sam muttered.

“I have a lot of tools in this belt you don’t know about,” she responded.

After a few moments, the lock clicked and they entered the room. It was dark, not a tinge of light in the entire house, not to mention that the blinds were drawn. Natasha assed the room for movement, or any signs of life, yet came up with nothing. Even the bed didn’t seem like it had been slept in for years. It truly looked abandoned. All of a sudden a force tackled Steve, who had entered the room first, to the ground.

Just by the metal glint from the arm, Natasha knew it was James. She and Sam rushed inside, yet still kept their distance, not really knowing what to do.

Just before James could throw the first punch to Steve’s head, he stopped. His arm was half raised with his hand in a fist.

“St..Steve?” he asked. His grip on the captain loosened and his fist relaxed.

“Yeah, it’s me, Buck,” Steve explained, calmly. Not knowing how James would react. He decided not to make any sudden movements either.

“Steve?” he asked again, this time getting off of Steve to let him stand.

“You okay… I didn’t think you would remember,” he then helped Bucky to his feet and wrapped his arms around him in a hug. He was hesitant, but accepted it, though still tensed to the feel of human contact. 

“Yeah… I didn’t think I would remember either but… even after they wiped me again… after a while I just…” he began, then stopped and backed away. James broke the hug then took out his gun, aiming it at Natasha and Sam.

“It’s okay, Bucky, they’re with me,” Steve explained. “That’s Sam.”

Sam gave a tentative wave, yet kept his hands raised since Bucky still hadn’t lowered the gun.

“And that’s Natasha. Well, you might know her as Natalia,” Steve finished. A moment later, he lowered the gun. 

Natasha watched James’ eyes roam over her. There was no sign of recognition. No flicker of familiarity. Her heart sank.

“I don’t know a Natasha, or a Natalia,” he said slowly. Looking from Steve to Nat and back to Steve again.

“Yes you do, she…”

Before Steve could continue, Natasha interrupted him.

“Steve,” she said calmly.

He gave her a questioning glance.

“It’s alright,” she paused then nodded to James. “I’ll let you two catch up. Explain to him our plan.”

Steve watched as Natasha left the house, closing the door behind her with Sam following shortly behind.

She sat down on the steps, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“You okay?” Sam asked. She felt his hand on her shoulder. And he squeezed it lightly.

Natasha couldn’t mutter a response only nodded.

“I’ll leave you alone,” he said, awkwardly stood there for a moment, then decided to return into the house to talk to Steve.

Only once she heard the door close, did Natasha let the tears she was holding in fall. She should’ve gotten used to this by now, him not remembering her. But she didn’t. It hurt her like this every single time. Maybe she was gone from his memory for good. And that thought killed her.

o0o

(James’ POV)

James had began to remember Steve 3 weeks into his long life of hiding. His mind was unstable, he knew that. But without the regular wipings, new memories arose and began to fill his mind. Some came in dreams, others came during the day. Most of them were from a time of the past. The past, past. The 1940’s past and even farther back.

There was a boy with blonde hair, that then grew up with him to become a man. They had fought in the war. They had been friends. That man’s name was Steve. Of course each memory came with more detail. But this was the overview of an outline James could create.

But James remembered being called James. Or the Winter Solider. So when Steve had called him “Bucky” in the memories it shocked him at first. Yet eventually he had grown used to it.

He knew there was other memories. Ones he hadn’t uncovered. Ones from the time in between the “then” and “now”. But he couldn’t reach them. It was as if they were locked away in his brain.

After almost half a year in hiding, still in the same house, James had recovered a great deal of memories. More than he had ever imagined belonging to him. And there were newer ones now. Ones from that time in between. Yet those were the worst ones. The ones of his killings, of him training others to do the evils he had done. Those ones brought him to hell and back.

He dreaded those memories because there was nothing good about them. They were filled with pain and torture and all the disgraceful acts of crime he had committed. Everything seemed to have returned, at least that he could tell, which surprised him, yet there were these missing pieces. Like big hole missing from the sequence. And it frustrated him that those memories never came back.

One afternoon, as he was sleeping, trying to get some rest and settle down his hungry stomach, when he head the door to the cottage he was staying in click. He grabbed his gun, which he attached onto his belt, and then kneeled, ready to attack whoever was breaking in.

He leapt onto the first figure he had seen, ready to punch the living daylights out of them; yet then once he saw the face, the blonde hair, the blue eyes, did he stop.

“St…Steve?” he asked confused.

“Yeah, it’s me Buck,” the man responded. James was relieved at the fact that, I guess, he “knew” his intruders, yet it was odd seeing the man he was once close friends with in person and not in his head. He didn’t really know how to react. First off, though, he got off of Steve, allowing him to stand.

“Steve?” he asked again, just to be sure.

“You okay… I didn’t think you would remember,” Steve held out his hand and helped the dazed solider up onto his feet. Suddenly, James felt himself being wrapped into a hug. He tensed at the touch of contact, not used to it being friendly, warm or kind. Yet then he melted into the embrace.

His brain still didn’t know what to think about any of this. The majority of him wanted to trust this man. Let him be cared for, yet the remaining part of his brain told him to kill him. That he was dangerous.

“Yeah… I didn’t think I would remember either but… even after they wiped me again… after a while I just…” he responded to Steve’s remark, then backed away quickly before drawing his gun onto the two people standing in the doorway. A woman and a man which he had never seen before. At least he thought he didn’t. The man, he didn’t recognize at all, but the woman? For some odd reason she seemed familiar.

“It’s okay, Bucky, they’re with me,” Steve explained calmly. “That’s Sam.”

James watched the man give a weak wave. He could tell just by his movements that the man was afraid of him. Good, then he wouldn’t attack, James thought. 

“And that’s Natasha. Well, you might know her as Natalia,” Steve finished.

The woman, on the other hand, didn’t wave. She barely moved, just kept her eyes on James, as if she was evaluating him herself. And what shocked James was that she couldn’t read her. He could read everybody. Could just see Steve’s positive energy radiating off of him, how happy and joyous he was. He could see Sam’s cautious attitude towards the solider. But James couldn’t read this woman at all. Natasha was her name? He didn’t know a Natasha. Or a Natalia? He didn’t know either.

“I don’t know a Natasha or a Natalia,” he voiced his thoughts slowly. Keeping his eyes locked on her own. Eyes were the main tell, he should be able to read something out of them, yet he couldn’t. Who was she? He looked from Steve, to the woman, Natasha, and back again.   
“Yes you do, she…” Steve argued, yet before he could get very far in his explanation the red head spoke up. How had he only just noticed her red hair? Something about that color was familiar as well. 

“Steve,” she said and gave him a look that shut Steve up. But James watched as Steve communicated through the eye contact. Are you sure? Steve voiced with his gaze.

“It’s alright,” the woman paused, then nodded at James. “I’ll let you two catch up. Explain to him our plan.”

James watched the woman leave the house, closing the door behind her with that man, Sam, following her outside as well.

He didn’t recognize her name. Not at all. But there was something about her, in the way she moved, how she looked, even how she talked, that he recognized. And he couldn’t figure out why.

Steve interrupted his thoughts by explaining his “plan”.

“I want to bring you home, Buck. I know you want to lay low, I get that, but… I’ll protect you. I’ll find a way to. Be assured, I’ll do everything in my willpower to make sure HYDRA doesn’t get to you ever agin. I want you to come home,” he explained.

“And where’s home?” James asked, yet his mind was in a total different headspace.

“New York,” Steve shrugged.

James thought for a moment. He didn’t know how long this location would be secure. HYDRA could be on his tail. And everything in his mind told him to trust Steve. Not to mention the fact that he had already broken through most of the brainwashing and memory wipes. But those triggers. He couldn’t stop those from occurring. There was always this tinge of doubt in the back of his mind that he couldn’t be trusted. That he shouldn’t be around other people, that he was dangerous.

Yet this was Steve. His best friend (based off of the memories) and his brother. And in his heart he trusted Steve as well. 

Yet there was something else that began to stir in him. Steve said that home was in New York. Sure, maybe location wise, yet James knew that that wasn’t his real home. No, something in his heart was telling him that his real home was with a person. And he had to find that. He had to find his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this part of the series! I don't know how many more parts I'll add, but I'll be sure to continue this storyline. Thank you for reading!


End file.
